


Come on, Come on, Collide

by BelleRaev



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Chuck Lives AU, M/M, Soulmates, Survivor Guilt, i mean... they have each other, idk what else, so that's happy, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2013-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-01 18:50:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1047357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelleRaev/pseuds/BelleRaev
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Filled this prompt at pacificrimkink:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <i>I found this text post on tumblr: (http://mspoffin.tumblr.com/post/64555292163)</i></p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <i>"I had a dream where every person, at exactly midnight on new years following their 22nd birthday, they possessed the body of their soulmate and people ran around trying to figure out who they were so that they could find eachother, and they left notes for the body’s owner to find with their address. And there were some language gaps so people had to translate it and travel to different countries carrying the notes they were left, and it was great"</i></p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <i>and idk BODY SWAP AND DRIFTING SOULMATES CAN THIS BE A THING? maybe change the age to 21 so chuck's eligible for shenanigans just before he is vaporized all over the ocean floor IT'S UP TO YOU</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Come on, Come on, Collide

**Author's Note:**

> I recently saw Pacific Rim about four times and decided that I'm going to obsess with it for a little while. I'm sure the prompt was supposed to be fluffy but um... I'm sort of in a mood... so there's angst, >.> sorry.

He wakes up in a body that doesn’t belong to him. He knows this before his eyes open, he feels stifled somehow and his limbs are awkward. He knows what’s happened because it’s been something that he has been waiting for since he was a child; this was the day that he learned who is soulmate was, the person that he is going to spend the rest of life with. The person who would make him insurmountably happy and touch all the parts of his soul that even drifting with his brother couldn’t reach. He was more than ready for this. 

When he rose from the bed he was surprised to find himself a bunker, he was also surprised to realize he was in a male body but that wasn’t a big deal since he considered himself of ‘fluid’ sexuality. A bunker much like the one that he shared with his brother with very little space to do move more than was necessary. 

This gave him hope, if he and his soulmate were within the same profession which currently included piloting jaegers than he wouldn’t be very hard to get a hold of. 

The first thing that he does is run into the bathroom and flips the switch. He needed to see the face of the person that he was destined to be with. 

Staring through the eyes of someone else was disconcerting, so was how young the boy looked. He was definitely a few years younger, he guess sixteen or seventeen which made him feel odd. It wasn’t that big of a difference but it meant that he had a few years to go until the guy, whom he nicknamed ginger, had the same experience that he was currently having. 

He stroked his fingers through the short strands of red blonde hair that topped his head and gave a wide smile at the softness of it, than he grinned wider at the dimple indentations in ginger’s face. He was good looking and those dimples were probably going to be the death of him, that is to say he survives the whole Kaiju thing that they were dealing with. 

The light flips back off and he returns to the small room and rubs his palms together before diving into the mission of finding out as much as he could about ginger. 

By the time that his few hours were over and he felt himself fading he managed to collect a few important tidbits including a name, a continent and a date of birth. It was going to take six years before Chuck, his ginger, had his own out of body experience and he wasn’t sure that he could wait that long to start their epic romance. 

As soon as the opportunity presented itself he would take a trip to Australia and find the future love of his life. He woke up back in his own blonde, twenty-two year old body and had a grin on his face. That was the plan and it was going to go great. 

And then a few weeks later Yancy dies.

Just ripped away while he’s standing a few inches next to him. Snatched crudely from his life and his mind and he feels empty and cold as the remnants of his brother’s last moments tears him to pieces every second of every day and well… he doesn’t feel like he could love anyone. 

Now there is only an ache tethered to the ghost that flashes before his eyes at random points to make matters significantly worse whenever he feels numbs and there was just no way that he could let someone enter his life, at least not anytime soon, definitely not until he’s healed. 

 

\-----------------------------------------

Their first interaction does not go well. 

It’s been five years and the Marshall has brought him back to the world of Jaegers and threw him right into something that he wasn’t sure he was ready to face that had nothing to do with the Kaiju. 

He had been avoiding that world for more than just grief over his brother, there was also the fact that he’s seen his ginger grown up on the news and the tabloids and it made him yearn and cringe at the same time. He was so damaged, he would make them both miserable and his soulmate would hate him. Even fate wouldn’t make it work.

So when Chuck is affronted by his mere presence in the dome it really doesn’t help things and further proves his point. 

It’s been five years, not six. So he knows that rationally, the cocky Australian doesn’t know who exactly he is rejecting but emotions doesn’t care much for reason. They just are. And it hurts because he remembers being young and hopeful and looking to a future with someone who’s soul was made for his. 

Now that was out of the realm of possibilities because Chuck doesn’t like him. 

Chuck doesn’t like him and it’s justified so he’s going to just keep what he knows to himself, stuff it all the way down and ignore it like he’s been doing. 

 

\-----------------------------------------

They closed the breach, they canceled the apocalypse and Chuck is dead. 

A lot of people are dead and he feels the sting of all the lives lost but Chuck’s death is the impact of a plasma canon discharge through his core. 

He didn’t think that anything could feel worse than watching his brother get torn from his life and he was wrong. 

He doesn’t understand it because he did everything absolutely possible to not get close to Chuck. 

The whole ‘soulmate’ thing, it wasn’t mandatory. 

It wasn’t as if, if you never found that person than you had absolutely no chance of happiness, it was just an opportunity to be your best self and everyone took it because well, why would you want anything less. 

He had wanted less for this exact reason and he thought not getting close meant avoiding falling in love and avoiding the pain but he was wrong. 

Chuck was dead. And he wouldn’t recover from that. 

 

\-----------------------------------------

He’s awoken by the shrillness of his phone ringing. 

It’s a little passed three a.m and his head feels sluggish but he answers because it’s Mako and he never ignores calls from Mako. 

**“Raleigh! They found Chuck”** she’s sobbing through her words and they are near unintelligible but his heart jumps in a way that it hasn’t in the last year, or more accurately five and a half counting back from Yancy. 

Everything after that is a blur, travelling back to Hong Kong, to the Shatterdome with the cautious frightened walk of a man anticipating a cruel joke by the universe. 

It turns out to be true and there was a surge of hope that flooded him as he watched the unconscious man attached to machines in the hospitable bed, a sudden belief in miracles as he acknowledged that there was a second chance to do things right.

He has no idea where he would start, but he had his soulmate back and that was a good place as any. 

 

\-----------------------------------------

It’s New Year’s day and there’s a pounding at his door that echoed anxiety through his cells. 

He hadn’t been sleeping even though he shied away from the party that the crew was throwing to bring in the New Year and honor those who couldn’t be there to see it with the excuse that he was tired. The truth had been that he wanted to be somewhere safe when the other took hold of his body. 

He retired to his room because what safer place was there, and also because it would be a great place to hide in case it didn’t turn out well. 

Now there was a pounding at his door, angrily at that and soon a voice filtered through the cracks. 

**“I know you’re in there _Raaaleigh_** ” He had gotten use to the emphasis that the younger man always put on his name to the point of making him smile like an idiot just to hear it. 

He wanted to open the door but found it increasingly difficult to stop being dead weight and make his muscles even twitch. 

Over these last few months they have been moving towards something. Slowly moving, like trudging through tar while attached to anvils but moving nonetheless. But this, this was a big jump and he honestly wasn’t sure what to expect from Chuck on the other side of the door. He sounded _pissed_ and that was never a good way to start a conversation. 

**“We need to talk, asshole”** The words wrapped in his ginger’s thick Australian accent caused him to shut his eyes and mentally prepare himself for the onslaught as he forces his limbs into action and finally rises from the bed. 

The door swings open and Chuck is there gritting his teeth and eyes narrowed as he stared him down. All things considered, he supposed he would be upset also to find out that his soulmate was within such close vicinity and keeping that very important fact from him. But there were things in the way, things that he had hoped that Chuck would understand. 

Things like the Chaos and grief of losing everything twice. Exactly what was he supposed to have done? 

**“Do you want to come in?”** He tries for calm but it comes out worried and faint. 

**“No”** the reply is curt and contradicted by the fact that the younger man does step forward and into the room. 

Then they were kissing.

All tongue and teeth and shorted breath between reckless abandon, relief and regret. It wasn’t what he’d imagine their first kiss would be like but it was perfect and damn oxygen for being necessary when he was trying to absorb his cocky Australian ginger into him. 

They toppled back unto the bed and he was reminded of the feeling he first got when he first drifted into his soulmate’s body and stared through his eyes and he knew that his life was going to be fulfilled and inexplicably happy.

**Author's Note:**

> song title from cassiopeia by sara bareilles,


End file.
